


i will keep you warm the best i can

by violet_sunset



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Self-Worth Issues, Trust Issues, and he's good at them okay, honestly i'm shocked i didn't mention roach in this, or at least he's trying, sorry bby girl i'll write u a whole fic next time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:42:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23740036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_sunset/pseuds/violet_sunset
Summary: Jaskier is used to losing people due to his anxiety disorder, which at the time goes unnamed and misunderstood. Luckily, Geralt isn't the type to give up easily, despite the careless attitude he cultivated in childhood. Maybe it's Jaskier, and has always been Jaskier, that will break apart Geralt's facade and bring them together in the end.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 3
Kudos: 244





	i will keep you warm the best i can

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all in one night and the following afternoon so uuuhhh yeah lmao.  
> title from flatsound's "in the absence of everything, i promise to keep you warm"

It’s not morning yet when Geralt wakes to a sensation of cold at his back. He frowns, grumbling sleepily as he rolls over to try and spot Jaskier amidst his bedroll. They’ve had to sleep outside more often this season, as audiences are sparse and their coin is dwindling. As a result, they sleep beside each other to trap warmth between their bodies, and for safety, or so Geralt insists. It’s a bit selfish of him, but he wants his bard close. Ever since they reunited after the dragon hunt, Jaskier hasn’t dared to come too close. He’s withdrawn and guarded, much the same way Ciri is. The young girl loves them both, to be sure, but she keeps her emotions behind the glassy walls of her eyes, and Geralt has yet to decipher her moods. Yennefer has better luck with it, as she stays with Cirilla when Geralt and Jaskier are looking for hunts.  
  
Which, speaking of Jaskier, he is nowhere near the dying embers of the fire they made last night. Geralt likes sleeping beside his bard, feeling the swell of Jaskier’s rib cage as he breathes, listening to the gentle hums he makes as he sleeps. It’s comforting, but the arrangement comes with the singular downfall that when one of them rouses, the other inevitably does as well.  
  
Geralt sits up to look around for his bard, hoping the man is only off in the nearby trees for a piss. As if the universe is taunting him, Geralt hears nothing except the quiet breeze and the chittering of night creatures in the branches. No danger hits his senses, but Geralt’s chest still seizes with concern when he can’t immediately locate Jaskier with his ears.  
  
Emerging carefully from his bedroll, Geralt stalks on bare feet towards the tree-line, taking short breaths through his nose to scent out the area. There is the faintest trace of Jaskier’s usual unobtrusive dandelion perfume on the stagnant air near the ground, meaning it hasn’t been long since he wandered away, but he’s far enough into the woods that Geralt will need to track him. Geralt sighs, wondering why his bard insists on putting himself into wretchedly dangerous situations like this. Despite Geralt’s walk-about yesterday evening to clear the area, there could be unforeseen dangers who drifted in with the moonrise.  
  
Geralt stoops down and turns his head to look for footprints under the sideways gleam of the moon. There are his own freshly pressed tracks, the barest indents on the pine and grass. A few windswept patches of leaves catch his attention, but when he finally lands on the prints that must be Jaskier’s, he’s surprised to see them lead towards the river. He and Jaskier both bathed recently, and it’s not like the bard to suddenly wake and decide he needs a good face-washing in the dead of night. He stands with a light exhale and follows the direction of Jaskier’s trail down towards the river. As he draws nearer, the faint bubbling of moving water rises to a steady rush in Geralt’s ears. Only, there’s another sound beneath it. A sharp hitch of breath, a muted sort of vocalization. Geralt wonders if Jaskier is singing to himself, composing after a sudden bout of inspiration struck. It’s not uncommon for the bard to get caught by poetry that he must expel. In fact, Geralt often finds himself lulled to drowsiness at inns when Jaskier needs to pour his heart over a low fire and the strings of his lute.  
  
The noise changes as Geralt comes nearer, and it’s then that he notices the scent of salt and the unmistakable musk of sadness. Geralt pauses just before the river comes into sight, his body tense as he considers the implications. Jaskier doesn’t stink of fear, so he isn’t in any physical distress, but his crying is loud and unrestrained. Geralt feels suddenly and horribly out of his depth. Jaskier clearly came to the river to mask his crying and to be alone, and Geralt is not so worried about their safety at the moment to interrupt. Mostly, he isn’t sure how to handle someone who is crying. Especially not Jaskier, who so often smiles and incessantly jokes and carries with him too much energy for one man. But here, in the still and swaying darkness, Geralt feels as though he’s not known Jaskier a day in his life.  
  
For someone so devastatingly and constantly emotional, it surprises Geralt that Jaskier hasn’t cried in front of him before. Geralt can’t help wondering how long this hiding has been going on. Does Jaskier wait for rare instances of privacy? Does he cry when Geralt is a town ahead, looking for a hunt? Does he cry this hard every time? As he stands, uncertain, Jaskier’s sobbing becomes impossible to ignore.  
  
At once, Geralt gathers every ounce of courage he has and takes those final strides to place him at the edge of the pebbled river-bank. There is a crop of large, flat stones in the dirt and tall grass that flanks the river’s curves, and Jaskier is seated atop one of the rocks with his head in his hands and his knees to his chest. He looks so small, and Geralt wonders what happened to make his bard cry like this. It’s the type of crying that comes most often from despairing widowers, childless mothers, mourners. It is despondent and ceaseless, and punctuated by ragged breaths that Jaskier’s body seems to rattle against, as if the source of his sorrow has burrowed inside his body and grown so that nothing else will fit inside.  
  
“Jaskier,” Geralt says softly, but his voice is lost beneath the rumble of the river as it flushes past a rocky bend and spills over a submerged tree root. He steps closer, cautious that he might startle his bard. “Jaskier,” he calls louder.  
  
This time, Jaskier’s head shoots up and he freezes like he’s heard the thundering of a beast coming his way. His eyes are red from tears and his face is shining wet under the stars, nose and cheeks pink from the force of his crying. When the crystalline blue of his irises, brighter with contrast, land on Geralt, Jaskier’s body deflates with relief. He can’t stop his crying, though he tries valiantly, scrubbing at his face with shaking hands and taking stuttering breaths to calm his lungs. The sobs still come up into his throat, but he chokes them off with harsh swallows.  
  
“G-Geralt,” Jaskier says around a hiccup. He must realize the grit in his voice and the hitch of his breathing will give him away no matter what, because fresh tears well along his eyelashes and spill down to his quivering chin.  
  
Geralt is at a loss for words. He’s never seen Jaskier like this, and the urge to find whoever caused these tears and show them a worse penalty than even death overwhelms the ability to formulate speech. He opens his mouth to try, but all that comes out is an inadequate question. “Did something happen?”  
  
Jaskier sniffles and turns his head to stare down into the water below the edge of his chosen seat. He shakes his head. Then Geralt watches as the slopes and edges of Jaskier’s perfect profile crumple like paper into another loud sobbing fit. Jaskier presses a hand over his mouth to stifle the noises, but it doesn’t do much for Geralt’s enhanced hearing. He catches every whimper and gasp, and it’s too much to just stand away and watch. Geralt walks closer, the pebbles beneath his feet crunching as they grind against one another, and when he draws near enough for his shadow to fall across the stone Jaskier is sitting on, the bard flinches away as if stricken.  
  
“Jaskier,” Geralt murmurs. A twinge of hurt strikes through his body as he considers that his bard may not want him here. “Please,” he begs, unsure what he is even asking for.  
  
Jaskier’s hand curls into a fist and before Geralt can stop him, Jaskier crashes that fist down from his face and into the meat of his thigh, cursing through clenched teeth. He draws back to do it again, and Geralt catches his wrist with an aching throat. Geralt can’t remember the last time he personally cried, but now his eyes are burning at the thought of Jaskier hurting himself to maintain some kind of tenuous control over his emotions. His beautiful, brilliant, soaring emotions. Jaskier sobs and shouts wordlessly with frustration. He tries to pull free of Geralt’s grip, but only succeeds in turning his body towards the witcher as he struggles.  
  
“Jaskier, please, please stop,” Geralt says, his voice like gravel. “I want to help, if you’d just tell me what was wrong!” He can’t help that his voice rises.  
  
Jaskier freezes once again, this time halting even his breath. He lifts his eyes to meet Geralt’s with a panicked look, startled and high-strung like a hunted animal. Geralt relaxes his grip on Jaskier’s wrist to slide his palm higher, cupping Jaskier’s shoulder and leaning close enough that Jaskier can read the sincerity in his expression. “Please let me help,” he says.  
  
That’s all it takes for Jaskier to breathe again. He gives a humorless laugh that comes out more like a sigh, and shrugs as if to escape Geralt’s touch. “Nothing to do, really,” he says unhelpfully, and then really does sigh when Geralt fixes him with an unimpressed glare. It’s a softer one than usual, but it gets the point across. “I just… I just panic. There’s no rhyme or reason, nothing to beat up or kill to make it go away. I’m just fucking broken.” The words are bitter in a way Geralt hasn’t heard since the mountaintop. He’d hoped to never hear that sharp-edged tone again, at least not when aimed at him.  
  
“Broken?” Geralt asks, because he can’t understand how his beautiful songbird could ever think of himself as broken. Not when he’s so beautiful and unscarred, so tender and kind, and so unlike Geralt’s monstrous self in every way.  
  
Jaskier groans and runs a hand through his hair, tugging harder than necessary. “It’s not normal, Geralt. I get… I get tense and all my thoughts start, just, running together I guess. Like, like when I have a song I can’t work out? I feel stuck, but like my mind is somewhere ahead of me and I can’t catch up. And then it just… I get like this.” Jaskier gestures wildly at himself, eyes fixed on Geralt’s chest as he speaks.  
  
The explanation sparks an old memory, and Geralt’s grip tightens on Jaskier’s shoulder as he realizes what’s afflicting his bard. “Jaskier, you’re not broken.”  
  
“I am,” Jaskier corrects harshly before Geralt can finish.  
  
“You’re not,” Geralt nearly growls. He just needs Jaskier to understand —  
  
“Geralt, it’s fine!” Jaskier all but shouts, and wrenches himself out of Geralt’s grasp before swinging his legs over the opposite edge of the rock and stands facing Geralt with the new barrier between them. “You don’t have to convince me I’m not,” Jaskier spits out, his whole body trembling. “I’ve always been broken, and it’s fine. I didn’t want to bother you with it, so just leave it, won’t you?”  
  
Geralt can’t help it; he scowls. “You’re not fine, Jaskier. I wake up in the middle of the night to you crying your fucking eyes out when we should both be sleeping, and then you tell me it’s happened more than once? That’s not fine!”  
  
Jaskier has his own scowl in return, and Geralt feels a jolt that roots his feet to the ground when he realizes Jaskier has never been so visibly angry with him before. “So sorry I interrupted your fucking beauty sleep, Geralt. You know, for a while I thought you actually —” he cuts himself off with a shake of the head. “But no one sticks around for very long anyways, so I guess I shouldn’t be fucking shocked.”  
  
Geralt feels like he’s been slapped. “No one sticks around? What the hell am I, then?”  
  
Jaskier is practically vibrating with rage when he screams, no hesitance or shake in his voice anymore, “You left!”  
  
The echo of Jaskier’s words fill the valley around them in pulses, and they stare at each other for a long moment in the envelope of shared silence before Geralt breaks. He very nearly drops Jaskier’s gaze as shame curls tight around his torso and threatens to crush him, but he needs Jaskier to understand how sorry he is. “I never should have,” he says. “I hurt you beyond forgiveness, and if I’m the reason for any of your tears, I swear I —” he has to stop when his voice becomes too thick to force out. He shuts his eyes then and feels the first tear he’s cried in decades fall down his face.  
  
“Gods, Geralt,” Jaskier says breathlessly. There’s a hint of fear in his voice, like even now he expects Geralt to walk away in an attempt to keep his feelings nebulous.  
  
But Geralt is past that now. It hurts too deeply to ignore, like a festering wound. He opens his eyes again and doesn’t wipe away the second tear as it falls. “I shouldn’t have left you, because you’re the best friend I’d ever had, and you didn’t deserve a single moment of my anger, and I’m sorry.”  
  
Jaskier has his arms crossed over his chest, but not as if to put distance between himself and Geralt. Instead, his thumb is rubbing unconsciously against his upper arm, and Geralt realizes that Jaskier is soothing himself. “Thank you,” Jaskier whispers. “I’m sorry too.”  
  
Geralt almost scoffs. “For what?”  
  
“For waking you up and… taking all this out on you,” Jaskier says.  
  
Geralt shrugs one shoulder. His stomach feels tight and his head is spinning. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if Jaskier tries to move past this conversation without letting Geralt say what he needs to. “I deserved some of it,” Geralt admits with a half-smile. “But you don’t deserve what you said about yourself.”  
  
Jaskier sighs and groans in the same breath. “I was hoping we could ignore that. Geralt, I know you’re trying to help, but you don’t have to lie to me. I know it’s strange and I know it’s bothersome, you don’t need to pretend.”  
  
“I’m not lying or pretending,” Geralt rebukes, and hurries on before Jaskier can interrupt him once again. “I knew siblings at Kaer Morhen with the same affliction. They had both seen their parents die, and even into adulthood they suffered crying fits and the feelings you described, like they were trapped in a single moment while their minds continued without them. I know you think it’s abnormal, but it’s something I’ve seen all across the Continent.”  
  
Jaskier is quiet for a moment. Then, gently, he ventures a breathy “Oh,” before shifting his weight onto his left leg. “It— do people usually have… um,” Jaskier pauses as he comes up with the words. “Like the siblings you knew, was it always related to… um, something bad that happened to them? Or something they saw?”  
  
Geralt thinks back, then shakes his head no. “Sometimes it came from nothing, and sometimes it was particular to bad parenting or partnership, but nothing they could define as traumatic.”  
  
“Ah,” Jaskier intones suddenly. “That’ll be the ticket.”  
  
“What will,” Geralt asks flatly. He isn’t sure if he can accept what Jaskier is implying.  
  
Jaskier sighs shakily. “My mother and father weren’t the greatest at raising children. I was their youngest, and they’d grown tired from my brothers. My father would avoid me as much as he could, and when I finally asked Mother about it, she told me it was because I — she said I was too much for him to deal with. Too much for anyone. I might have already been like I am now, because when I cried she told me to stop or she would take me to the streets and leave me there.” Jaskier’s eyes are clear of tears as he talks, but he looks as though he’s opening an old wound back up to the night air. The tension in his frame carries all the pain he can’t vocalize.  
  
Geralt’s arms hurt. He wants to pull Jaskier against his chest and hold him until he chases away every shadow that anyone has left on his bard’s immaculate heart. “She was wrong,” he says firmly. “You’re not too much. You never have been.”  
  
Jaskier flattens his lips like he can’t believe that. “I hate to bring it up again,” he starts.  
  
Geralt knows immediately he’s talking about the fight on the mountain. “That wasn’t about you, Jaskier. It was me being foolhardy and stupid as usual. You’re twice the man I’ve ever been, with more heart than any bastard on this Continent that could try to tell you otherwise.”  
  
There’s a moment of silence unlike the ones before. Jaskier’s arms drop back to his sides, and he looks at Geralt with something unreadable in his eyes. Something dark and low, and for a moment Geralt wonders if he’s done something wrong. Then Jaskier looks down at the stone between them as if he’s just noticed it, and steps around it to approach Geralt. It’s a walk with purpose, and Geralt tenses in preparation for whatever Jaskier is about to do or say.  
  
Jaskier places his hands on the sides of Geralt’s face and locks their eyes. “You’re a good man, Geralt. Don’t downsell yourself.”  
  
Geralt covers one of Jaskier’s hands with his own, revelling in the way Jaskier’s thumb strokes across his cheekbone. His other hand flutters nervously, wishing to fit against the gentle curve of Jaskier’s waist and pull him closer. But Jaskier has always told him to use his words, and while it’s difficult to put together a coherent thought in the face of Jaskier’s… well, face. His eyes are glittering with the reflection of the stars, and though his eyelids are puffy and his skin is still splotchy from crying, the slant of his jaw and pillowy cheeks are captivating. Geralt plants his hand a little higher up than he wants, his ring finger flush with his bottom rib. Jaskier stills, eyes flickering down to Geralt’s lips. It’s just the confirmation he needs to finally speak.  
  
Unfortunately and rather typically, the words come out all wrong. “You’re making it difficult not to kiss you,” Geralt rumbles.  
  
Jaskier’s eyes crinkle as he grins, and he sways forward into Geralt’s space. Their chests are pressed together now, and through Geralt’s laced chemise he can feel the warmth of Jaskier’s body bleeding into his own skin. “That might’ve been my plan since I first laid eyes on you,” Jaskier whispers, and wiggles his hand out from beneath Geralt’s so he can wrap his long, delicate fingers around the back of Geralt’s neck and draw him close.  
  
When their lips touch, all of Geralt’s worries go crashing out some proverbial window, and all he can feel is Jaskier’s warm and gentle mouth. His nose fills with the smell of drying tears and dandelion perfume, and Geralt sighs contentedly out his nose as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss. His now unoccupied hand parallels his other, sliding his arms to lock around Jaskier’s waist at the curve, palms flat against his shirt and drawing him impossibly closer. The tone of the kiss changes then. Jaskier’s lips part around a contented hum and Geralt tentatively slicks across Jaskier’s bottom lip with his tongue. His bard groans in response, a sound that punches low in Geralt’s gut and makes his neck and face bloom with heat. They tilt their heads for better access to each other’s mouths, trapped in the feeling of lips parting and meeting. It sends a shock of arousal through Geralt when Jaskier takes his lip between dazzlingly straight teeth and bites hard, pulling back a bit to catch his witcher’s dazed expression.  
  
Geralt pushes his forehead against Jaskier’s to breathe for a moment, and when it becomes evident both of them are too exhausted for this to go any farther, Jaskier squirms and tucks his head beneath Geralt’s chin. He’s almost too tall to fit properly, and Geralt has to lift his head a little higher than usual, but he just tightens his arms around Jaskier’s middle and sways them gently. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” Geralt admits.  
  
Jaskier hums in lilting, pleased notes. “I’m glad you got around to it,” he mumbles into the fabric of Geralt’s shirt. “Shame I had to be tear-stained and snotty when it finally happened. I’m sure you had a much different vision of me in mind when you imagined how this might go.”  
  
Geralt chuckles and finds that he can feel how that vibrates through Jaskier’s body. “Maybe,” he replies noncommittally. “If this means you’ll talk to me when you get low like this again, then I don’t regret it.”  
  
Jaskier sighs and goes practically limp in Geralt’s arms as a challenging rebuttal. “You drive a hard bargain,” he teases, though there’s an underlying hesitance to his voice. Opening up about his true feelings must be new for Jaskier, with what he’s told Geralt.  
  
“I certainly do,” is Geralt’s only answer, and if they stay tucked together by the riverside until Jaskier complains of leg cramps, then that’s between the witcher and his bard.

**Author's Note:**

> #my next fic in the witcher fandom either needs heavy focus on my girl roach  
> #or is literally just gonna be a cute fic about geralt teaching jaskier how to maintain her hooves and coat and mane skdksk  
> #maybe he shows his boo-thang a lil somethin about tack and riding techniques  
> #and roach is very tired of their flirting  
> #honestly i never understood horse girls in middle school  
> #but roach is the type of horse to convert every sensible adult into horse girl mode  
> #she's just such a good gangly puppy


End file.
